Shopping and phones

Lets get the bad news out of the way first, as they say plans rarely survive contact with reality. Before getting here I had planned and promised regular (if not daily) blog updates from the trail, unfortunately this wont be happening now.
Don't worry I can hear you shouting why, well lets say I had my first taste of US mobile phone carries and I have to say I'm that I am surprised how bad the plans that are on offer are.
My requirements are
1. A SIM card (I already have a phone)
2. No contract (pay as you go, I'm only here for a few months)
3. Be able to make and receive calls
4. Be able to use internet/email
5. Reasonable coverage along the trail.

For anybody coming from Europe the first four items probably sound easy and if you browse some of the US sites like I did you might think it would be easy.

Well lets review the issues I had.

Firstly the question of coverage narrowed the realistic choices down to either Verizon or AT&T, no problem at least I have a choice :)

So Verizon seemed to have slightly better coverage from looking at the coverage reports on WWW.pctmaps.net

Unfortunalty Verizon do not offer any options to purchase a SIM only package, or at least not one that will allow voice calls, they do have SIMs but they are aimed at data only e.g. ipads and such, since I already have a very nice smart phone with me this is not much of an option for me.

So still not a big deal, I'm sure AT&T will want to take my money.

When I first start talking to the nice agent in the shop things are looking good, they have a nice package for $60 a month that seems to do everything I want, unlimited calls and unlimited internet including calls to Ireland, looks good doesn't it.....
That is what I was thinking as well until the bomb was dropped as they they say, the agent then mentioned that the unlimited internet part of the plan did not apply to smart phones,  that option is only available with a contract or on older non smart phones.

So instead of one of them getting at least 300 dollars off me over the next six months they will only get maybe 50 as I took the cheapest plan that simply lets me make calls and texts and pay for them as I go.

One item in the plan compares favourable to plans at home and that is 10c/minute national calls and 49c/minute calls to Ireland, this is well below the rate you pay at home on a basic pay as you go plan, but it's not all good, compared to home, you pay both to make and receive calls and texts here, so even if I only have incoming calls my credit is getting eaten up :(

So what does all this mean for the blog, well basically it means that I will only be posting updates when I can either get wifi coverage or get some other means of getting internet access. So please do not be surprised if it ends up being weeks between actual posts, to make up for this I have gotten a SPOT which I will use to provide basic updates, I'll post more about this in a day or so.

So other than my time battling phone companies, yesterday was a day filled with shopping and arranging some other final items.

I have to say that so far I am really enjoying San Diego, it feels very different to most other American cities I have been in (mostly east coast) it has an excellent public transport system so it is very easy to get around to the shops I need, so far I have only had to resort to taxis once or twice and that was more for convience than necessity.

At this point I probably have all the equipemnt I need to actually hit the trail (other than food, that's for today)
I will make a seperate post in the next few days with equipment details.

On the aggenda for today is food.shopping and looking at some of the gear that I got yesterday to make sure nothing is missing and to familiarize myself with some of it, as well as arranging to send my bounce box on ahead with unneeded items.

My current plans involve getting started on the trail on Monday (I have added and extra day in San Diego to see some more of the sights)

Well I think that will do for now, more posts to follow.

Good bye and thank you for all the fish

Okay so this post started out as my last posting from Ireland but I ran out of time in Dublin airport so it will just have to double as my first posting from America as well.

So arrived save and sound in America after an 11 hour flight and cleared customs and immigration sucessfully, I don't know if it is a good thing or not but I really don't mind long flights these days, well not as long as I have a decent book or two.

So what are the plans for the next couple of days?
Today and Friday should involve finalising some equipment and food so a visit to REI (large outdoors shop)  is in order as well as a large supermarket to see what food I want to try (remember coming from Ireland I know what types of food I want but not specific brands or anything, so the first week on the trail may involve different brands of the same thing just to see which I prefer for the rest of the trip)
Also I need to collect some equipment that was sent on ahead.
Today will be the first time I get to see some of my key equipment including tent, stove, backback and some others.

After (and probably during)  all that I also want to have a bit of time to see.San Diego as it is my first time here and I want to get some walking in to allow myself to acclimatize to the weather, while it will be different when I hit the hills it should ease me in a bit.

March 19th Update

Just a quick update since I posed in a while.

The count down is really on now 8 days till I leave Ireland (28th March) and 12 days till I hope to make my first steps on the PCT.

Its really hard to describe how I feeling at the moment about the trip, my emotions towards the hike are a real mixed bag, excited, nervous, excited, scared, excited, overwhelmed, you get the idea.

Before finishing up in work I had such good plans about getting in a lot of training hikes, unfortunately real life has intervened a bit, most of my time has been taken up with finishing up jobs around the house and getting it ready for my house sitters to move in next weekend.

One of the advantages of flying in from Ireland and planning on resupplying on the trial is that I don't have all the extra work of preparing shipping boxes of supplies.

Other things that have been going on in the last few weeks is some finalising of equipment, any mail order equipment that I needed is sitting in Boston (Thank you Dave) and should be getting sent to San Diego in the next day or so, this saved a lot of money on shipping but it means that the first time I will see some of my key equipment is when I get to San Diego and the first chance I will have to test some of it will be my first night on the trail (now you can see why the some of the nervous feelings are sneaking in)
It also means that my few days in San Diego are likely to be a bit hectic between equipment and food shopping, hopefully I'll still have some time to see a bit of San Diego as it is my first time there.

All required permits are now in.

• PCT permit, which covers access to the different wilderness areas and parks along the trail (otherwise you would need to get individual permits where required)
• California Fire permit, this is required to have any open flames in wilderness areas of California, which I will need for my alcohol stove.
• US visa, this is required because I will be in the US for longer than the normal 90 days that is normally available to Irish people, this was available from the Irish embassy in Dublin.
• Canadian entry permit, this is an additional permit that basically gives you permission to enter Canada via the PCT even though it is not a normal boarder crossing location, very simple to get, basically download a form on line, fill out and send off, I had it back in Ireland in less than 3 weeks and this included probably a week each way for postage.

So nothing really left except final get togethers with friends and family and getting on the plane.

I will try to get a few posts made form San Diego to update everybody on my progress and then regular updates from the trail.